The Biograph catalog described the film as follows: "Showing the great Chinaman paying his homage to Grant's Tomb."
       The film employed a pan shot from the gathered crowd to the dignitaries. At the time, Grant's Tomb was formally called the General Grant National Monument. It was completed in 1897.
       In Beginnings of the Biograph (1964), Gordon Hendricks noted that Li Hung Chang at Grant’s Tomb premiered at Gilmore’s Auditorium in Philadelphia, PA, on 20 or 21 Sep 1896.
       During Li Hung Chang’s 1896 visit to America, American Mutoscope filmed him three times in New York City: the other two were Li Hung Chang at Grant’s Tomb and Li Hung Chang, 5th Avenue & 55th Street, N.Y. (1896, see entries). The three were taken over three consecutive days, 28-30 Aug 1896. There are also two 1901 films with the same title, Li Hung Chang (see entries), in which Li Hung Chang watches his visit to Grant’s Tomb on the Parlor Mutoscope.
       The American Mutoscope Company was co-founded in Dec 1895 by former Edison Manufacturing Company inventor William K. L. Dickson (who left Edison in Apr of that year), fellow inventors Herman Casler and Harry Marvin, and businessman Elias Koopman. Their Mutoscope, which originally made flip-card peep show movies, soon rivaled Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope (see Edison Kinetoscopic Records for 1893). In the summer of 1896, when Edison introduced the Vitascope 35mm projector, American Mutoscope immediately came out with its own 68mm projector that offered a superior image. In 1899, the company changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, then shortened it nine years later to the Biograph Company.